European parliament backs waste prevention and cradle-to-cradle design
Earlier we had a look at bioplastics and how their development must be seen in the broader context of the emerging bioeconomy. Currently, our consumer societies produce enormous amounts of 'bad waste', often based on petroleum products, that either ends up in toxic landfills or is burned and releases carbon. Biopolymers, bioplastics and plant-based products on the contrary would be biodegradable and drive a closed-cycle design philosophy. Products made from plants result in 'good waste': throwing them away comes down to fertilising soils on which new biomass grows. In such a universe, waste is welcome. The more of it, the better (earlier post).
On Tuesday, the European Parliament's Environment Committee implicitly voted in favor of such a future by taking the European Union's policies on waste a step further. The Environment Committee gave its backing to the principle of a "hierarchy of waste" - which ranks waste treatment solutions by their environmental impact - when it voted on Tuesday on the draft revision of the framework directive and the thematic strategy on waste proposed by the Commission. MEPs also called for various clarifications, including a clear distinction between waste and useable by-products.
Five-stage waste hierarchy
The Environment Committee regards the new approach suggested by the Commission, based on the "life-cycle" of a product, as too theoretical. It prefers to stick "as a general rule" to a policy of a "waste hierarchy", which ranks treatments in five categories, from the most to the least environmentally-sound: 1. prevention, 2. re-use, 3. recycling, 4. other recovery operations, 5. disposal. It says Member States should be allowed to depart from this hierarchy "when life-cycle assessments and cost-benefit analyses indicate clearly that an alternative treatment option shows a better record".
Cradle-to-cradle
MEPs are also calling for total waste production to be stabilised by 2012 (compared to the 2008 position). The Commission is asked to propose indicators by 2008 for assessing progress made by Member States and to formulate by 2010 a "product eco-design policy" as well as targets for waste reduction. Such a product design policy will take on the form of promoting cradle-to-cradle design across the board. Cradle-to-cradle design means a product's components can be entirely re-used either in their original context, or in new products:
biomass :: energy :: sustainability :: bioplastics :: biodegradable :: bioeconomy :: waste :: recycling :: cradle-to-cradle :: European Union ::
Member States' duties
For the first time, the directive also introduces waste prevention targets for the EU. The aim is that the member states will stabilise their waste production by 2012 to the level produced in 2008.
The Environment Committee wishes to simplify the requirements for national waste management programmes, to make them less bureaucratic and more compatible with the subsidiarity principle. MEPs say the requirement for the Member States to ensure that "all waste undergoes recovery operations" should apply "where practicable". National authorities must also do whatever is needed to ensure that the collection, production and transportation of hazardous waste, as well as its storage and treatment, are carried out in conditions providing optimum protection for the environment, and to ensure that mineral waste oils are collected separately. And all hazardous waste treatment installations must have a permit.
Incinerators
For incinerators and the use of waste as an energy source, MEPs approved the energy efficiency criteria as proposed by the Commission, but asked that operators be given longer to implement them. They also asked that the grant of permits for these operations be subject to a high level of energy efficiency.
Thematic strategy
In addition, in an own-initiative report drafted by Johannes Blokland (IND/DEM, NL), MEPs approved a package of recommendations to the Commission's thematic strategy. These seek to ensure that, in waste policy, the Commission's use of comitology (implementing decisions taken by committees of experts) is restricted to technical and scientific matters, and to underline the importance of the five-stage waste hierarchy. MEPs also call on the Commission to put forward various legislative proposals (on practical measures for waste prevention, new indicators, specific directives on biodegradable waste, construction and demolition waste and sewage sludge, and a revision of the directive on storing waste).
More information:
European Parliament: Environment Committee takes first steps to sort waste directive - 28 November 2006
Euractiv: MEPs back waste-prevention targets, reject burning - 29 Novermber 2006
Article continues
On Tuesday, the European Parliament's Environment Committee implicitly voted in favor of such a future by taking the European Union's policies on waste a step further. The Environment Committee gave its backing to the principle of a "hierarchy of waste" - which ranks waste treatment solutions by their environmental impact - when it voted on Tuesday on the draft revision of the framework directive and the thematic strategy on waste proposed by the Commission. MEPs also called for various clarifications, including a clear distinction between waste and useable by-products.
Five-stage waste hierarchy
The Environment Committee regards the new approach suggested by the Commission, based on the "life-cycle" of a product, as too theoretical. It prefers to stick "as a general rule" to a policy of a "waste hierarchy", which ranks treatments in five categories, from the most to the least environmentally-sound: 1. prevention, 2. re-use, 3. recycling, 4. other recovery operations, 5. disposal. It says Member States should be allowed to depart from this hierarchy "when life-cycle assessments and cost-benefit analyses indicate clearly that an alternative treatment option shows a better record".
Cradle-to-cradle
MEPs are also calling for total waste production to be stabilised by 2012 (compared to the 2008 position). The Commission is asked to propose indicators by 2008 for assessing progress made by Member States and to formulate by 2010 a "product eco-design policy" as well as targets for waste reduction. Such a product design policy will take on the form of promoting cradle-to-cradle design across the board. Cradle-to-cradle design means a product's components can be entirely re-used either in their original context, or in new products:
biomass :: energy :: sustainability :: bioplastics :: biodegradable :: bioeconomy :: waste :: recycling :: cradle-to-cradle :: European Union ::
Member States' duties
For the first time, the directive also introduces waste prevention targets for the EU. The aim is that the member states will stabilise their waste production by 2012 to the level produced in 2008.
The Environment Committee wishes to simplify the requirements for national waste management programmes, to make them less bureaucratic and more compatible with the subsidiarity principle. MEPs say the requirement for the Member States to ensure that "all waste undergoes recovery operations" should apply "where practicable". National authorities must also do whatever is needed to ensure that the collection, production and transportation of hazardous waste, as well as its storage and treatment, are carried out in conditions providing optimum protection for the environment, and to ensure that mineral waste oils are collected separately. And all hazardous waste treatment installations must have a permit.
Incinerators
For incinerators and the use of waste as an energy source, MEPs approved the energy efficiency criteria as proposed by the Commission, but asked that operators be given longer to implement them. They also asked that the grant of permits for these operations be subject to a high level of energy efficiency.
Thematic strategy
In addition, in an own-initiative report drafted by Johannes Blokland (IND/DEM, NL), MEPs approved a package of recommendations to the Commission's thematic strategy. These seek to ensure that, in waste policy, the Commission's use of comitology (implementing decisions taken by committees of experts) is restricted to technical and scientific matters, and to underline the importance of the five-stage waste hierarchy. MEPs also call on the Commission to put forward various legislative proposals (on practical measures for waste prevention, new indicators, specific directives on biodegradable waste, construction and demolition waste and sewage sludge, and a revision of the directive on storing waste).
More information:
European Parliament: Environment Committee takes first steps to sort waste directive - 28 November 2006
Euractiv: MEPs back waste-prevention targets, reject burning - 29 Novermber 2006
Article continues
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Russians build Eurasia's largest ethanol plant, exports to EU, Asia
Energy super-power Russia has started building one of the world's largest bioethanol factories in the South-Western Siberian region of Omsk. The aim of the €166 million (US$ 218 million) project is the production of green fuel for exports to the EU and Asia.
According to Itar-Tass [*Russian - or German sources: here, here and here], a Russian-Czech consortium is building the ethanol plant which will have an annual capacity of 150,000 tonnes, making it the largest in Eurasia. Leonid Poleschajew, governor of the Omsk region, said the project is financed by a local agrobusiness group called Titan and by Czech company Alta. The factory is planned to be operational in 2008 and will produce up to a fifth of the total national capacity of Europe's main producer, Germany. It is unclear which feedstocks will be used for the production of the gasoline substitute.
Omsk is centrally located in Russia, indicating a strategic choice by the ethanol producers who have explicitly stated that both the EU and East Asia are the targeted markets.
Russia is the world's largest energy exporter with the European Union and East Asia becoming ever more dependent on its oil and gas. But this doesn't prevent the giant from investing in alternative energy sources. Recently, Europe was a bit startled when it learned that Russia's state-owned gas company Gazprom is thinking of buying Germany's Lurgi AG, the world's leading firm in the sector of engineering and building ethanol plants.
According to research by the International Energy Agency's Bioenergy taskforces, the Russian Federation and the Baltic States have a total combined bioenergy production potential of 199 Exajoules per year by 2050, under an optimal scenario. This technical potential is roughly equal to 79 million barrels of oil equivalent per day - slightly less than all the oil consumed in the world today [entry ends here].
ethanol :: biofuels :: energy :: sustainability :: geopolitics :: bioethanol :: EU ::China :: Russia ::
Article continues
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